Going once, going twice, going broke – Cyprus enters age of shop, spin and regret

Cyprus has already embraced mystery boxes, spinning wheels and online auctions. Live-shopping platforms are taking those familiar retail tricks and turning them into a nightly show. At the Mall of Cyprus this year, Ivan was handed the keys to a new electric Renault 5. His route to the car had not begun in a showroom. It began inside a sealed mystery box. Cyprus retailer POW! The Shop had hidden 30 golden Renault replicas among boxes sold through its stores and website. Finding one earned the customer a place in the final draw. Ivan found replica number 12 and eventually won the car, according to the retailer’s winner announcement. For most customers, the box contained merchandise. For a lucky few, it contained another chance. There is no suggestion that the promotion caused anybody financial harm. Nevertheless, its appeal reveals something important about modern shopping. The customer paid before knowing exactly what would be received, while the possibility of an exceptional prize made the opening almost as valuable as the contents. Uncertainty, once something a retailer tried to remove, had become part of the product. The same principle is now moving from Cyprus’ shopping centres to its phones. In early August, Temu stood at No. 3 in the island’s iPhone shopping chart. A review preserved on the local app page complained that the platform repeatedly opened with a spinning wheel and made the button for closing it difficult to see. The reviewer said the experience felt as though the company was “underestimating our intelligence”. European consumer authorities have raised a similar concern. They accused Temu of “forced gamification”, including making customers spin a fortune wheel before entering its marketplace while hiding important conditions attached to the supposed rewards. The investigation remains open, according to the European Commission. However, the wheel is only the beginning. Whatnot, a platform built around rapid livestream auctions, flash sales and giveaways, is available through the Cyprus App Store. So is Tilt, which offers live-hosted fashion rooms, auctions and limited “drops”. Meanwhile, eBay’s Cyprus app now advertises livestream auctions and “case breaks”, where customers buy a share of unopened collectible packs and discover what they own only when the case is opened on camera. Cyprus is not yet one of TikTok Shop’s European markets, while residents cannot currently register as Whatnot sellers. Cypriots can still watch, bid and buy through several of these services. The audience can arrive before the industry does. There is already a sizeable audience for online shopping. During the first quarter of 2025, 62 per cent of Cyprus internet users bought or ordered goods and services online, according to the latest Cystat survey. The rate reached almost three-quarters among people aged 16 to 54. The appetite can also be measured at the border. Cyprus received 160,000 low-value parcels containing approximately 650,000 items in July alone. The new €3 EU duty collected almost €2 million during its first month, customs figures showed. Live-shopping companies want to make that familiar delivery journey faster, louder and considerably more entertaining. On Whatnot, sellers sit before cameras surrounded by trading cards, trainers, handbags, tools, coins, cosmetics or food. Viewers talk in the chat while products are displayed and placed into auctions that may last less than a minute. The host calls the bids. A countdown appears. Usernames flash across the screen. When the timer expires, the winner’s payment can be processed almost immediately. It resembles a market stall, a television-shopping channel, a social-media stream and a casino floor squeezed into one phone. That combination has become an enormous business. Whatnot reported $8 billion in livestream sales during 2025, more than double the previous year. More than 20 million accounts were created and users spent an average of 95 minutes a day on the app, according to its company-commissioned selling report. More than 500,000 hours of live shows are now hosted each week. Although sports cards and trading-card games remain important, growth is spreading into ordinary retail. Beauty sales rose 791 per cent, electronics increased 444 per cent, jewellery grew 259 per cent and women’s fashion climbed 223 per cent, according to the company. The attraction for sellers is easy to understand. A conventional online shop waits for customers to arrive, search and compare. A livestream gathers them in one room and gives the seller control of the atmosphere. Products that might remain listed for weeks can disappear in seconds. Questions can be answered and an item demonstrated before hesitation has time to settle. Whatnot said sellers who broadcast daily earned close to $60,000 a month on average, while one in eight sellers now treats the platform as a full-time occupation. The figures come from Whatnot and represent the company’s account of its own marketplace. Still, they help explain why other platforms are rushing towards the format. TikTok Shop expanded into Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands and Poland in June, bringing its European presence to ten markets. Cyprus was not included in the latest European expansion. London-based Tilt has concentrated on trainers, designer clothing and vintage streetwear. Its Cyprus app promises auctions, giveaways and live-hosted rooms involving more than 500 resellers. For buyers, though, the most powerful part of the format may be the part that cannot be seen. In a case break, a seller opens a sealed box of collectible cards during a livestream. Before it is opened, viewers purchase individual positions, teams or categories. What each person receives depends on what happens to be inside. The buyer is purchasing a real product, and the arrangement is not automatically gambling in the legal sense. Nevertheless, the emotional appeal comes partly from uncertainty. An ordinary card may be worth very little. The rare one could be worth thousands. A disappointing break can therefore produce the most commercially useful thought in the room. Perhaps the next one will be better. For most customers, that remains inexpensive entertainment. For some, however, the speed and repetition can remove the pauses that would normally limit spending. Sean Harding downloaded Whatnot after returning to the baseball-card hobby he had enjoyed as a child. Within four months, the 45-year-old American accountant had spent $1,362,687.31, according to a Wall Street Journal investigation. The money came first from savings, then personal loans, a friend and finally his employer’s company credit card. His marriage ended, he resigned from his job and sold his home, car and card collection. After returning to the app in 2026, he reportedly spent another $37,000. Harding said that “It was every night. Every single night.” His experience is extreme and cannot be treated as representative of Whatnot’s millions of users. It does, however, demonstrate what can happen when collecting, competition, nostalgia and instant payment are placed inside a system that never closes. Whatnot said that “gambling isn’t allowed on Whatnot” and said it offers responsible-spending tools, including self-exclusion and purchasing limits. The difficulty is that live commerce does not need to be gambling to borrow some of its most effective sensations. Research published in BMC Psychology found that the perceived presence of the presenter, the audience and the platform could encourage impulse purchases by creating positive emotion and inspiration. Other research has identified scarcity, competition and the behaviour of the crowd as important influences during livestreams. The seller is not simply describing a handbag or a packet of cards. The seller is providing company. Regular buyers recognise one another in the chat. Hosts remember names, preferences and previous purchases. Somebody watching alone from a bedroom or home office may feel they have entered a familiar room where everybody shares the same interest. Leaving can therefore feel less like closing a shop and more like walking out of a party. European regulators are increasingly examining whether the familiar tricks used by shopping and social-media platforms have moved beyond persuasion. In February, the Commission opened formal proceedings against Shein over the “addictive design” of its service. The investigation is examining points and rewards offered for continued engagement, the platform’s recommendations and the measures taken to protect users’ wellbeing. The case has not been decided. Still, it is significant that Brussels is treating rewards for engagement as a possible regulatory risk rather than an innocent piece of colourful app design, according to the formal proceedings. Only days earlier, the Commission reached preliminary findings against TikTok over features including infinite scrolling, autoplay and highly personalised recommendations. The case concerns TikTok generally rather than TikTok Shop alone. That distinction becomes difficult to maintain when the same stream keeping somebody entertained can also sell them a dress, cosmetic product or kitchen appliance without requiring them to leave the app. Temu came under separate pressure in May, when the Commission imposed a €200 million fine for failing to assess properly the risks of illegal and unsafe products offered through its marketplace. The penalty concerned product risks rather than spinning wheels. Together with the continuing consumer investigation, however, it shows that Europe is examining both what these platforms sell and how they persuade people to buy it. Nor are the problems confined to the largest marketplaces. A coordinated European investigation published in March examined 314 online traders during Black Friday and Cyber Monday. It found that 30 per cent displayed discounts incorrectly, while 36 per cent attempted to place optional products in customers’ baskets. Furthermore, 18 per cent used pressure-selling techniques such as countdowns and limited-stock claims. More than half of the examined pressure claims were considered misleading or false, according to the EU investigation. Cyprus has also begun tightening its own rules. Amendments to the consumer protection law entered into force on June 19, 2026, requiring online traders to provide a clear electronic option for customers to withdraw from eligible distance contracts. The amendment also introduced additional protections for distance financial services, prohibiting interfaces that mislead or manipulate consumers or interfere with their ability to make free and informed decisions, according to the Cyprus provisions. The distinction matters. Buying during a rapid auction may take seconds. Exercising a legal right to withdraw should not take considerably longer. Meanwhile, Cyprus is preparing to restrict social-media access for children under 15 and is moving towards the EU’s age-verification system. That raises an unanswered question for live commerce. Whatnot, eBay and Tilt carry age ratings of 13+ in the Cyprus App Store. However, they are not ordinary shops. They combine video, chat, creators, notifications and community interaction with instant purchasing. Whether future Cypriot rules will treat them as retailers, social networks or something between the two has not been clarified. That gap will become more important as shopping and entertainment continue to merge. Live commerce could eventually offer Cyprus businesses a valuable route beyond the island’s limited domestic market. A jewellery maker, fashion retailer, winery or collectibles shop could demonstrate products to customers abroad without opening another store. At present, however, Cypriots may increasingly participate as buyers while local businesses remain outside the most valuable side of the market. Whatnot’s approved locations include the US, Britain and several larger European countries, but not Cyprus. The island may appear to be arriving late. In reality, the delay offers something valuable: time to decide what protections should accompany the market when it arrives. The question is not whether presenters should be allowed to make shopping enjoyable. Good salespeople have always created excitement. Nor is every mystery box, giveaway or rapid auction a trap. The question is whether the price is clear, the countdown is genuine and customers understand what they are buying. It is also whether platforms intervene when entertainment turns into compulsion. A shopping app can provide the host, the crowd and the thrill of winning. A bargain, however, should still feel like a bargain after the countdown has reached zero and the room has stopped cheering.